POWER

“Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory”  

Henry Ward Beecher. 

KING OF THE HILL

Stone hand upthrown,

he faces west:

sharp-browed, stern-eyed,

tall, statuesque.

Read the inscription at his feet:

A worthy man whose noble deeds

set him among the town’s elite ...

and yet, the epitaph misleads.

A robber-baron in his day,

then changed, by circumstance and luck,

to city elder, feet of clay

well hidden, so no thrown-mud stuck,

he ruled his little fiefdom well

and saw his enemies destroyed 

without remorse. Who could foretell

that such a man, one so devoid

of gentleness, with traits like those,

would be immortalised in stone

and, in this hand-hewn granite pose,   

transcend mere flesh and blood and bone 

to stand now, haughty and austere

upon a lofty plinth that reads

An honest man in every sphere ...

A worthy man whose noble deeds ...

Such sentiments are seldom true:

all’s foolishness, a massive bluff.

Man needs to forge idols anew:

mere gods alone are not enough.

THESE BE THE VERSES

My favourite poet, Philip Larkin, born 9 August 1922, was a writer whose poetic output is distinguished by what former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion described as "a very English, glum accuracy" about emotions, places, and relationships.” 

Born in Coventry, it was Larkin's adopted home city, Hull, that commemorated him with a statue in December 2010, the 25th anniversary of his death.

Eventually, in 2017, a long-overdue floor-stone memorial to him was unveiled at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

In a 2003 Poetry Book Society survey, almost two decades after his death, Larkin was named Britain's best-loved poet of the previous 50 years, and in 2008 The Times referred to him as Britain's greatest post-war writer.

It’s difficult to decide which Larkin poem is my favourite because there are so many to choose from. Aubade comes close, as do An Arundel Tomb and MCMXIV, but the one that tends to stick in people’s memory is This Be The Verse with its unforgettable opening line.

Here it is, along with my own poem, This Be The Other Verse, a light-hearted homage to Philip Larkin. 

THIS BE THE VERSE

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don’t have any kids yourself.

                      &

THIS BE THE OTHER VERSE

They carve in stone, engravers do,

Your name with start and finish dates

Then hand it to some cleric who

Abuses boys and masturbates,

Who then invites a bunch of craps

Up to the Abbey in best suits,

For lengthy speeches and back slaps,

Daft eulogies and organ toots.

It fucks you up, this being dead:

But I was fucked up long before.

I left behind so much unsaid

And, still unwritten, poems galore.

But now, turns up a stone that’s like

A library book long overdue.

I sit on my celestial bike

And, gazing down, applaud the view.

MOVING PICTURES

Despite technology and a way of life that would surely resemble science fiction to my parents' and grandparents' generation, we nevertheless retain certain links with our distant ancestors: our propensity to wage war, our tribalism, our innate fear of the dark and our efforts to conquer that fear. 

Each generation, it seems, plays that same bedtime game with their children: the age-old pastime of creating shadow-animals on a bedroom wall by the light of a bedside lamp.

SHADOWPLAY                                       

The shadow-creatures conjured there

on bedrooms walls, the dove, the hare,

by fathers, mothers, dextrously, 

for young children, must surely be

no different from the shadow-beasts

that shamans, tribal-chiefs and priests

made dance, by firelight, on cave walls

while others, crouched in skins and shawls,

knelt silent, in a state of bliss,

enthralled by magic such as this.

 

NO MONEY IN POETRY

Anyone who writes and is at all self-critical will probably be able to relate to the sentiments contained in this poem.

SMALL CHANGE      

                                                       

When words are called for, verse or poetry,

I rummage in my pocket for small change

and promptly offer up a handful: See,

here are my words, these sundry coins. 

It’s strange 

to see them there, so lacklustre and dead,

those dull ten-pees, those drab pathetic twos,

that shone so very brightly in my head.

My hard-earned verses, rhymes, opinions, views, 

have not much sterling value, so it seems,

while other, bolder people’s money screams.

LOST LOVES

I'm very proud to find myself not only sharing a booklet but also sharing a page with one of my favourite poets, Wendy Cope, in a recent Sampson Low publication, Lost Loves. 

You can purchase a copy by clicking on this link:- https://www.waterstones.com/book/lost-love/wendy-cope/david-whippman/9781912960965

 

LOVE STORY

‘Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds’ 

W. SHAKESPEARE. Sonnet 116

I thought myself in love. I lay awake  

imagining your hair spread out like gold 

and whilst asleep your hair shone as I dreamed: 

such lustrous tresses, how I loved to touch.

All changed the day you had your hair restyled ...

you came home shorn and while I wept you smiled.

I yearned for love but that was my mistake:  

I never guessed love could turn quickly cold. 

Love was a fantasy or so it seemed:

I loved you little, loved your hair too much.

I thought myself in love but I was wrong. 

I loved you only when your hair was long. 

THE JOY OF NOW

The poem, Joy, part of the Murchen Quartet which appears in my 2017 Stone Witness collection, may be read as a stand-alone piece.

 

JOY

Awakened,

past erased, future

nonexistent,

their world begins afresh.

Only the extraordinary now,

a collision of senses,

exists.

 

Music.

Blackbird’s flute, 

grasshopper’s fiddle,

drumbeat scuttle of field-mice,

accordion-wind in high meadows. 

Silence.

In crystalline pools 

trout glide like ghosts.

Owls, tombed in dead trees,

imitate death.

Dreamlike,

in the magical moment,

hares dance.

ON THE BUSES

Like the proverbial buses, poem acceptances often arrive in multiples, rather than singly. No less than five of mine appear today in the Lothlorien Poetry Journal.

You can read them here: https://lothlorienpoetryjournal.blogspot.com/2022/07/five-poems-by-richard-fleming.html